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Sources: Textes inédits tome 1 Gaston Grua (ed) p 371 Sämtliche schriften und briefe series VI volume 4 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed) p 1528 Date: early 1686? Translated from the Latin View this translation in PDF format (10k) Back to home page Search texts by category: METAPHYSICS MIND, BODY AND SOUL FREE WILL AND NECESSITY SCIENCE POLITICS, LAW AND ETHICS THEOLOGY |
LEIBNIZ: A VINDICATION OF DIVINE JUSTICE AND HUMAN FREEDOM[Gr p371] [A VI 4, p1528] There are two famous labyrinths of errors; one of which has chiefly exercised theologians, the other has exercised philosophers, since the former touches on the inner nature of the mind, the latter on the inner nature of the body; the former is about freedom, the latter about continuous composition. Just as we can be geometers and physicists although we do not consider whether a line is composed of points, so long as we assume quantities so small in place of indivisibles that an error which can originate from that is smaller than a given number, or as meagre as we want, so we may satisfy theological truth, although we do not know the manner by which things and the action of things depend on God as well as on each other in turn (provided that we assume complete concepts or ideas of possible things instead of actual things themselves, which - it cannot be denied - are in the divine mind before every decree of the will and before the existence of things). © Lloyd Strickland 2003 |